Heart Shape Macaron with Mama Rose Dark Chocolate Ganache

It has been a while since I last posted a new post. I had been sick for a few days, winter is just so long and starting to feel like a real pain for me! I crave for the tropical sea breeze and sun like crazy.

Anyway, few days ago I decided to attempt to make heart shaped macarons for the second time. The first time I made them it was not very well shaped.

Well I have to say, second attempt was as bad. I managed to get 4 right, which are those you see on the photos. The rest were looking more like buttocks than anything else. Haha.

I have to find another way to improve this.

I filled the macarons with dark chocolate ganache combine with herbal tea infusion called Mama Rose. It's actually a Rooibos tea, typically only cultivated in South Africa. The one I used was aromatic in Rose flavour.

In France we found this in a boutique called Jardin de Gaia where we usually buy our organic tea. I don't know about overseas. If you can't find the Rooibos with rose, you could use plain Rooibos and infuse it in rose water

Mama Rose Rooibos

FOR THE MACARON SHELL
1 room temperatured egg white(39-40g)
50g icing sugar
30g ground almond
30g castor sugar
1 teaspoon red food colouring (powder)

Method:
1. Put ground almond, icing sugar and food colouring in a food processor or a small blender. Blend them finely.

2. Sift the blended mixture and set aside


3. With an electric beater, Beat the egg white, start from low speed and increase slowly to maximum speed. Beat until frothy (you will see lots of fine bubbles)

4. Now it's the time to add in the castor sugar, add half of the sugar, continue to beat in maximum speed for around 2 minutes, add in the other half, continue until you get very stiff peak.

5. Mix the dry ingredients into the egg whites. This process is called Macaronage. Start folding with a rubber spatula. Mix until you obtain a smooth shiny batter that flows like magma.

6. When you get smooth shiny mixture, stop folding, lift the mixture with spatula, if the mixture falls back slowly in the bowl means you're good to go. You could also check if the lines formed from the lifted mixture, they should slowly disappear in within 30 seconds. At this stage you're good to go. Do not over fold, it will be too liquid and becoming very hard to pipe.
if you're unsure, you could refer to my basic macaron recipe as a guide HERE

7. Pipe the macarons. To make the heart shape, I drew half heart the another half.


8. Let your macarons sit for about 30minutes. This will depend on the humidity in your house and the day. Try touching the macaron softly, after 30mins. it should not stick to your hand.

9. Heat your oven to 150 C on the (heating on the top only). When the oven is ready, put your macaron at the very bottom shelf. Bake for 12 minutes, check them in the mid time of 6 minutes, the feets should already start forming. Turn the baking tray to the opposite direction to allow even baking. When the 6 mins is up, change the heating setting of your oven to Bottom only. This will help cooking the macaron and rise the feet more. Bake for another 6 minutes. You can test if the macaron is cook, touch softly on the shell and when the macaron doesn't slide on the feet, it's cooked. if it's not add another 1 mins each time and check.

(This is the method i found the best that works for me after few trial and error. I baked with heating the oven top and bottom and i had crack macarons. Having said that, every oven is slightly different than another, so please adjust accordingly)




10. Let the macaron cool down before removing them. You could wet your working area and slide the baking sheet on it to speed up the cooling process, but do not let it sit there too long, if not the macarons will become soggy. Other wise you can leave them cool at room temperature and remove them.



For the Mama Rose Rooibos Dark Choco Ganache

Ingredients

10g water
1 teaspoon of Rooibos Mama Rose
(Note: if you don't have flavoured Rooibos, subsitute plain water with rose water, boil it up then infuse your plain Rooibos tea leaves)

1/2 teaspoon of Rose Syrup
60g dark cooking chocolate


Methods

1. Boil up some water. In a small cup, add in 1 teaspoon of Rooibos tea leaves, then add in 10g of boiling water. Leave aside for 10 minutes.

2. After 10 minutes, filter your tea in a pot, slowly warm it up a bit if it has turn a bit cold.

3. Add in rose syrup, stir well, then add in dark chocolate. Mix well till you obtain a smooth, shiny texture.

4. Set aside the ganache in room temperature for 1 hour or so.

5. Pipe the ganache on one macaron shell. Close up with another shell.

In the end I made some in round. Since I couldn't be bothered anymore to make the heart shape with few batter which was left in the piping bag

6. After finish piping all the macarons, pop them in an air tight container. Leave them in refrigerator overnight. You could keep the macarons up to 48 hours in the frige. if not consumed, freeze them up. Because after 48 hours they will lose the texture.